"In the conclusion of Goethe's Faust, the choir rejoiced in
the eternal femininity that draws us to the heights. In recent times,
through the mouth of Folkelt, child psychology has rejoiced in the
"primitive unity that distinguishes the normal mental life of the
child, that constitutes the essence and value of the eternal child."
Folkelt expressed here not his own thought but the fundamental
aspiration of the whole of modern child psychology, that is, the wish
to reveal the eternal child. The task of psychology, however, is not
the discovery of the eternal child. The task of psychology is the
discovery of the historical child, of what Goethe called the
transitory child. The stone that the builders have disdained must
become the foundation stone (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 91)."

Lev Semonovich Vygotsky was a great thinker from both the
perspective of an expansive world view, and the minutia of logical
detail. Therefore, to decipher his thoughts and intentions requires
one to think equally broad. Not that we need to think from only these
two separate perspectives, but that our visions must include all
potential vistas. His work also insists that we look at the
interconnection between these points of view; one idea is not
isolated to itself, but is derived from, and dependent on other
ideas. This is the essence of Vygotsky's critique of Jean Piaget.

He sees Piaget's work, and that of other "modern" psychologists
like Folkelt, as isolating the diverse aspects of child psychology
for the purpose of creating a grand overarching theory that can
define the "eternal" child. Unfortunately, Piaget's laws can only be
applied to the small sample that he studied (originally two children
in affluent Geneva), not universally or historically. Vygotsky is
critical of this perspective because it does not take into account
the unique "historical" nature of each individual child's psychology,
nor the eternal truths of nature (1987, p. 89). Vygotsky insists that
a child's interaction with her surroundings, with family, society and
culture, is the "foundation stone" upon which her individual
psychology is built.

Vygotsky wrote several papers describing his disagreements with
modern psychologists, and illustrating his own beliefs. In his paper
called "The Problem of Speech and Thinking in Piaget's Theory"
Vygotsky picks apart Piaget's methodologies and theories. These
critiques touch on both the subjects at hand, and the broader
philosophies of modern psychology. This paper, along with six others,
were first published posthumously in 1934, the year of Vygotsky's
death. They were first translated into English in 1962 under the
title "Thought and Language," and are the same as the 1987
publication titled "Thinking and Speech."

Vygotsky, as any researcher or theorist, does tend to find data,
information and passages that support his hypothesis. In his analysis
of Piaget, Vygotsky quotes his subject selectively. The quotes are
not distorted, but also not defended. In the following sections,
Piaget's position is taken entirely from Vygotsky's argument. The
conclusion of this paper will include other perspectives of Piaget's
position.

Thinking and Speech

Vygotsky's divergence from Piaget can be generalized as a process
of progression verses bifurcated isolation. Vygotsky believed that
through a child's experiences she will find a place in society and
begin to make connections between previously disparate ideas. He saw
this as a process that builds new ideas on the information and
relationships already existent in the child's life. The broader the
experiences the greater the potential for developing fresh concepts.
New phenominological revelations emerge from one's past encounters
(1987, p.89). Speech is seen as an important part of this thinking
process. It is through communication with others that a child will
absorb, process and reapply new and borrowed ideas (1987, p.72).

In contrast, Piaget saw development as having "a logic of
arbitrary circumstance (1987, p. 89)" and not connected to the
child's practical activity. He saw psychological development as
stemming from a biological system. Throughout a child's life one
stage of psychological development is replaced by another. This
supplanting does not have a relationship to previous events, but
rather is programed into us. For example, at the age of 7-8 a child's
egocentrism is replaced by socialization. There is no progressive
development, no lingering influence, simply the next stage.

Piaget's Perspective

It is this transitional phase at age 7 that Vygotsky uses to
illustrate his difficulties with Piaget's theories. Piaget's two
diametric stages are described as preoperational, from age 2-7, and
concrete operational, from age 7-12 (Eggen & Kauchak, 1992,
p.46). These stages are thought of by Piaget as two separate
realities and two separate ways of thinking. Piaget is more concerned
with the thinking, as opposed to the speech aspects of these stages.
Speech is considered a tool of thought, or a vehicle used to measure
one's thoughts.

During the preoperational stage Piaget describes children as
undirected thinkers, or what Bleuler would call autistic thinkers.
Autistic thought is subconscious and imaginative. It is concerned
with satisfying one's desires. This dream world of imagination is
individual and cannot be communicated with by language, but rather
through images and symbols (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 57). Piaget even
states that children have no verbal thought. When children play
together there is no communication other than that of gestures and
mimicry (1987, p. 88). Any form of contact is simply used to satisfy
the individual's desires. This relates to Freud's pleasure principle
which describes autistic thought as warping reality to fulfill one's
hunger. Children are said to be unmovable in their desire, that they
will not adapt. It is only the older child that can adapt her desire
to an objective reality (1987, p. 77).

"...conscious, ie., it pursues an aim which is present to the mind
of the thinker; it is intelligent, which means that it is adapted to
reality and tries to influence it; it admits of being true or false
(empirically or logically true) and it can be communicated by
language (1987, p. 57)."

Between these two forms of thought, these two stages of
development, is what Piaget calls egocentric thought. Egocentric
thought is a transitional phase, but abides strictly in the
individualistic realm. It is absolute in its influence until the
occurrence of socialized, or rational thought. Egocentrism has no
sense of consequences and is therefore asocial. Piaget believed that
syncretism permeated all of the young child's thoughts: a divergence
of ideas with no interconnection (1987, p. 60). Egocentrism is
further described as separate and isolated from the child's
experience. The fault never lies with the child, but with someone, or
something else. Educational or social influences are simply
assimilated and deformed by the child back to their original
egocentric essence (1987, p. 61).

This egocentric stage is marked by egocentric speech. Piaget
describes egocentric speech as a "child's verbal dream" and insists
that it has no significance to any activity or communication (1987,
p. 69). He also calls it egocentric because "the child speaks only
about himself but chiefly because he does not attempt to place
himself at the point of view of his hearer (1987, p. 66)." Piaget's
research measured the egocentric speech of children and calculated it
to be 44-47% of speech, by age six and a half (1987, p. 67). The
other half of the child's speech is classified as socialized, but
Piaget insists that these other requests, orders or questions are
generated solely for the purpose of furthering the egocentric agenda
(1987, p.67). Ultimately, the fate of egocentric speech is to atrophy
in the shadows of rational thought and socialized speech (1987, p.
71).

The movement from egocentric to rational thought, from
preoperational to concrete operational, is completed by compulsion
and pressure. Piaget believed that societal constraints on the young
child eventually collapse her autistic/egocentric paradigm.
Furthermore, egocentrism and cooperation are only brought together
through the external force of society. These two separate realities
do not evolve or intermingle, in fact, Piaget describes the movement
to rational thought in separated terms:

The upper plane [rational thought], on the contrary, is
built up little by little by the social environment, which presses
more and more upon the child as time goes on. It is the plane of
objectivity, speech, and logical ideas, in a word the plane of
reality. As soon as one overloads it, it bends, creaks and collapses,
and the elements of which it is composed fall on the lower plane, and
become mixed up with those that properly belong there...each of these
planes has a logic of its own which protests loudly at being coupled
with that of the other (1987, p. 83).

The child and her environment are separate. The child is an
isolated egocentric component being influenced and assimilated by
society. Children have no impact on society, and until this dramatic,
genetically predetermined point society has had no impact on
them.

Vygotsky's View

Vygotsky has great difficulty with this bifurcated perspective
because he sees a progressive link between the stages of
psychological development, and a contrary hypothesis to their order.
The order he sees is a progression from societal interactions to
internal thought. This movement is a gradual process that builds upon
the experiences and thoughts of its preceding stages.

Vygotsky saw that the earliest interactions and experiences of a
child are social. These social interactions are (a) immediate, the
child's interaction at a moment, (b) structural, the social
structures of family and school, and (c) general, societal features
such as language and number systems (Bodrova, 1996, p. 9). He also
believed that those interactions were accompanied by communication,
if not initiated by the child, at least engaged in by her. For
instance, if the child grabs at an object then an attentive adult may
move the object closer. There is meaning here for the adult, and
thereby communication. Eventually, the child learns that this could
be a gesture for others and thereby exploits this gesture as a social
signal (Subbotsky, 1999).

This speech, or communication, affects all those in the immediate
area and can be initiated by an adult or child. By its very nature,
speech is social and not merely a byproduct of psychological
development. The initial stage of speech is pure social interaction,
but gives way to a differentiation: communicative and egocentric
speech. Both of these are equally social, but have different
functions. Communicative speech is as it sounds, for the purpose of
concrete communication with others. Egocentric speech is actually a
process by which the child moves from external social communication
towards internal reflective thinking. The two coexist, and impact
each other as the child develops.

This is the essence of Vygotsky's beliefs. We move from the
external to the internal world. We begin as social creatures, learn
through interaction with others, and gradually come to terms with how
our individual selves function and relate to external society
(Vygotsky, 1987, p. 74-5). He places autistic thinking not at the
beginning of development, like Piaget, but rather at the end with
logical and internal thought. The fantasy and imagination of autistic
thought are now squarely in the conscious realm (1987, p. 64).

Reality, the concrete interactions and consequences of the
external society, are constantly impacting the child's mind.
Therefore, adaptation is directed by both one's needs, the ego, and
their impact on, and implications with, the outside world (1987, p.
77). Both of these are unified, operating with give and take to reach
a decision of action. As the child develops, she more frequently
internally reflects on the consequences of her actions, the role she
plays in social drama. This is demonstrated by the waning of
egocentric speech in favor of inner speech. The younger child will
describe, out loud, her drawing process: "The windows are blue and
the house is green." As she grows, the child no longer needs this
external reinforcement to achieve her goals. She internalizes the
process and simply draws the vision of her imagination.

Vygotsky also believes that this process of internalization is not
just a result of genetic function, or even social compulsion. He sees
the child as bringing her own perspective to this psychological
development. Piaget believed that illogical autistic thought created
a syncretic block in the child's mind. The child could not make
logical connections or predict causes and effect. If we ask why the
sun does not fall from the sky there is no way to resolve their
confusion because the child has no personal relationship with the sun
and its activity.

"However, if we ask the child about things that are accessible to
his experience (the specific content of this class of things being
determined of course by the education and upbringing of the
particular child), we will probably not receive a syncretic answer
(1987, p. 89)."

Vygotsky goes on to taught syncretism as a tool for connecting
disparate ideas, as in developing a hypothesis. If we help the child
build a bridge between a reality they currently know and a new,
unexplored idea, then they will become a "remarkable instrument for
investigation (1987, p. 89)." On the other hand Piaget calls child
truth "hinc et nunc (1987, p. 90)," here and now, related to only a
specific small environment. If the child can not make the automatic
leap beyond syncretism, regardless of her background, then she lacks
logical realistic thought.

Reflection

Vygotsky refers to Edouard Claparède, who appointed Piaget
to his post at the Rousseau Institute of Geneva (Jean Piaget Society,
1999), for clarification on conscious reflection. The first law of
reflection "states that difficulties or impediments encountered in
automation activity lead to conscious reflection on that activity
(Vygotsky, 1987, p. 70). The second law declares that the appearance
of speech is a marker for the onset of conscious reflection. Both of
these laws back Vygotsky's assertions on the cognitive, and social
development of children.

It is the process of experiencing life and people, in a variety of
circumstances and contexts, that help bring us to a state of
consciousness. It is not merely genetic biological programing that
brings us there. Because each of our experiences in life will be
different then the timing and path we take to get to consciousness
will also be different. With that, value can not be placed on one
experience over another. Like wise different forms of communication,
or speech should not be valued against a person's consciousness.
There can be observable, quantifiable differences in the speech we
use, but the act of communication itself signifies thought.

It is thought and speech combined that inspires Vygotsky. Not just
the cognitive ideas and words that relate to centration or
conservation, but more importantly the thoughts and communications
that connect us all to each other. It is the social interactions of
life that ultimately hold the most significance, not theories, test
scores, money or prestige. If we can not find happiness and relevance
in our ongoing personal interactions then it is difficult to apply
ourselves to academic considerations. If a child is hungry, or her
father just abandoned the family, these conditions may play a bigger
role in her cognitive ability to overcome irreversibility than her
chronological age.

In defense of Piaget, he does not totally disregard the impact of
society and culture on the development of children. In fact, he often
places the two perspectives, biological and social, on an equal
footing. Here are two passages from Piaget's 1932 book The moral
judgment of the child, and his 1970 book Structuralism:

There are no more such things as societies qua beings than there
are isolated individuals. There are only relations .... and the
combinations formed by them, always incomplete, cannot be taken as
permanent substances.

"... there is no longer any need to choose between the primacy of
the social or that of the intellect: collective intellect is the
social equilibrium resulting from the interplay of the operations
that enter into all cooperation (Cole, M. & Wertsch, J. V.,
1999)."

Still, Piaget's acknowledgement of social exchanges tends to play
a stronger role in older children. He sees the social context as
developing logical and systemic concepts which can not come into
existence until after the age of seven (Mole, L. C., 1990, p.
253).

Vygotsky's classification of Piaget's theories as cognitive
biology seems to be more of a tool to draw a clear distinction for
the intentions of those who work with children. As we have seen in
educational psychology since Piaget's initial presumptions, and since
the passing of Vygotsky, most psychologists and educators are
consumed by the classification and analysis of children as a whole.
As a result, we in society have neglected the perspective of the
individual circumstances that bring children into our lives. We have
placed the importance of test scores and psychological profiles above
the humanitarian growth of our children. It is now more important to
keep every given class of fourth grade students at the same reading
level than it is to help them to become life long lovers of reading.
It is more important to gauge 8th grade math score rankings with
other schools than it is to provide relevant circumstances of
application, or peer contextual reasoning. In this light it is fair
and appropriate to draw clear distinctions between these two
perspectives. Without a concerted effort to broaden the cultural
experiences of our young children we face generations of adults
without humanitarian perspectives. To diminish the eternal soul of a
child, simply for expedient classification, is to shrink the depth of
our collective kind. Because are primarily social learners it is
through culture that we must primarily teach.

"We can formulate the genetic law of cultural development in the
following way: any function in the child's cultural development
appears on stage twice, on two planes. First it appears on the social
plane, then on the psychological, first among people as an
interpsychical category and then within the child as an
intrapsychical category (Vygotsky, 1999)."